Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 30 April 2015

:: National ::

Changes in Act will make graft ‘heinous crime’

The Union Cabinet approved amendments to the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, that provide for classifying corruption as a heinous crime and longer prison terms for both bribe-giver and bribe- taker.
The proposed amendment will also ensure a speedy trial, within two years, for corruption cases.
“The proposed amendments would fill in perceived gaps in the domestic anti-corruption law and also help in meeting the country’s obligations under the United Nations Convention Against Corruption more effectively,” an official privy to the decision said.
The measures approved include penal provisions being enhanced from minimum six months to three years and from maximum five years to seven years.

Cabinet delinks Assam from new border pact

The Union Cabinet approved the long-pending – and controversial – Land Boundary Agreement with Bangladesh, ahead of bringing the Constitution Amendment Bill associated with it in Parliament next week. However, in a major departure, it has de-linked Assam from the agreement for now.
Top ministerial sources told that the decision was taken after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj briefed her colleagues on the “amended” agreement and told them that the changes had been conveyed to the Bangladesh government.
The latter had agreed to these amendments, these sources said, stressing that the Sheikh Hasina-led government had acquiesced to the changes as it was constantly being accused by its political rivals in the country of being pro-India and yet not deriving any advantage from that association.

Minimum pension to continue

The government decided to continue its Rs.1,000 minimum monthly pension scheme in perpetuity, a move which would benefit over 20 lakh pensioners under the social security scheme run by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation
The scheme was initially effective only till March.
Retirement fund body EPFO had suspended the scheme from April 1 in the absence of any direction from the government to continue with this benefit beyond March 31.
The scheme hiking the pension amount to a flat Rs. 1,000 per month was launched last September.
“Providing a minimum pension of Rs. 1,000 per month is an effort to provide meaningful subsistence to pensioners who have served in the organised sector. The present proposal is likely to benefit approximately 20 lakh pensioners under EPS 1995,” the release said.

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:: International :

Saudi King names a new heir

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman announced a new heir and made his son second in line to rule on Wednesday, concentrating power in his inner circle as the kingdom faces enormous regional challenges.
Since acceding to the throne following the death of King Abdullah in January, King Salman (79), has been steadily bringing loyalists into the deeply conservative kingdom’s upper reaches of power.
King Salman named his 55-year-old nephew Prince Mohammed bin Nayef — the powerful Interior Minister who once led a crackdown on al-Qaeda — as the new crown prince, replacing Prince Moqren bin Abdul Aziz bin Saud (69).
It was the first time a Saudi crown prince was relieved of duty and Prince Moqren was the last son of the kingdom’s founder Abdul Aziz bin Saud in line for the throne.
The King also named one of his sons, Mohammed bin Salman, to be deputy crown prince — ensuring power will pass to a new generation after his death. Mohammed bin Salman will also remain as Defence Minister, overseeing the Saudi-led air war against Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen.

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:: Business and Economy ::

Minimum support price for cotton increased by Rs.50

Taking note of the distress to cotton growers from fall in cotton prices, the Centre, on Wednesday, announced a hike of Rs.50 per quintal each in the minimum support price of medium- and long-staple cotton for 2014-15. It authorised the Maharashtra State Co-operative Cotton Growers Marketing Federation to undertake MSP operations.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also decided to restore the cuts in MSP for procurement of sub-standard wheat from farmers, who had suffered crop damage in rain and squall hit States.
The Centre will reimburse the amount of value cut imposed on the wheat being procured by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and State Government agencies in Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh under relaxed quality norms. So far, 158.61 lakh tonnes of wheat have been procured against a target of 169.29 lakh tonnes purchased in the corresponding period last year. In the case of cotton procurement, the CCEA gave its ex-post facto approval for engaging the Federation to procure cotton as a sub-agent of the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) during the 2014-15 cotton season. “This is aimed at safeguarding the interest of the farmers and avoiding any distress sale,” said an official spokesman.
The MSP for cotton was fixed at Rs.3,750for medium staple and Rs.4,050 for long staple for 2014-15.
The CCEA further approved an additional fiscal allocation under non-plan grant to meet the anticipated losses in disposal of cotton by CCI and the Federation for the year.
“The decision will enable in price support operations of 110 lakh bales (100 lakh bales by CCI and 10 lakh bales by the Federation) during the current cotton season and help stabilize cotton prices and alleviate farmer distress,” the spokesman added.
The Federation will procure cotton from farmers in Maharashtra, in addition to CCI, on the same lines as CCI is doing.
The Federation had earlier procured cotton under MSP as the agent of National Agricultural Federation (NAFED) in Maharashtra on the basis of agreement between central agency, NAFED and the Federation.

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:: Science and Technology ::

Chikungunya vaccine shows promise

An experimental chikungunya vaccine to induce neutralising immune responses to kill the viruses once they enter the body has shown promise in mice.
Mice vaccinated with the vaccine were “partially protected” even when they were infected with a high dose of chikungunya virus. In nature, the viral load will be much lower when it is transmitted by a mosquito. In all probability, the protective effect of the vaccine may be “sufficient to protect against a mosquito derived infection.”
The prophylactic ability of the vaccine can be enhanced if it is used with an appropriate adjuvant (a compound that can increase the immune response). Currently, no vaccine is commercially available against chikungunya. The results were published a few days ago in the journal PLOS Neglected Diseases .
The chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes and causes an infection in humans known as chikungunya fever. The disease causes fever and severe joint pain; the joint pain can last for a few months and in some cases for up to several years. India is one of the worst affected countries.
The chikungunya virus has two surface proteins — E1 and E2. While E1 is a fusion protein, E2 very likely plays a role in binding the virus with receptors seen on human cells. The E2 has three domains — A, B, and C. Of the three, the domain C is not accessible to antibodies and of little use in vaccine development. To produce a protein vaccine, researchers at Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, Langen, Germany, selected different areas in domain A and B and stitched them together.
After producing them in E. coli and purifying them, mice were immunised with these protein fragments. Their ability to produce neutralising antibodies in mice was studied post injection. Of the many protein fragments studied, the sAB+ proved to be the most efficient in producing neutralising antibodies. The researchers also generated a recombinant Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) using the sAB+ construct.
The MVA is a vector that is used to carry the molecule of interest (which in this case is a protein) into the body of mice/humans. The MVA vectors were used in the AIDS vaccine trail carried out at the Chennai-based National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis.
Besides the recombinant protein sAB+ vaccine, two different vaccine combinations were tested — MVA-CHIKV-sAB+ and/or recombinant protein sAB+. The mice were then infected with the wild-type chikungunya virus two weeks after the final dose of the vaccine.
The recombinant protein vaccine showed greater reactivation compared with the recombinant MVA vaccine. Not surprisingly, vaccination using the recombinant protein vaccine “markedly reduced” the viral load after the mice were infected with chikungunya virus.
The recombinant MVA vaccine did not show any significant protection when used alone or in combination with the recombinant protein.
The researchers say that since the mice were infected with a very high dose of chikungunya virus, the protective effect of the recombinant protein vaccine may be “sufficient to protect against a mosquito derived infection.”

Making buildings earthquake-safe

As science stands now, predicting the precise location, time and magnitude of earthquakes is not possible. However, the regions that are more vulnerable to quakes are well known. Much like the subduction zone off Sumatra, the Himalayan belt, in particular, is a seismically active region. As recently witnessed in Nepal and parts of India, the 7.8 magnitude earthquake ended up killing thousands of people. The culprit was unsafe buildings. After all, earthquakes do not kill, unsafe buildings do.
The extent of damage to buildings depends not only on the magnitude of the earthquake, but also on the type of construction practice followed in a particular region or country. For example, an earthquake in Tokyo or Los Angeles may result in damage of only a few buildings because strict construction regulations are adopted. But a similar earthquake may be catastrophic in Mumbai or Delhi, in terms of buildings damaged and lives lost, because the building design and construction practices are not adequately regulated.
There is much we can do to protect our buildings and thus save lives. It is possible today to assess the vulnerability of any building to earthquake, and, wherever possible, to undertake retrofit measures to make it safe.
When an earthquake strikes, the ground shakes violently, depending on several factors like the magnitude, the depth of the focus and the nature of soil. In some rare cases involving sandy soils in the presence of ground water, the soil can suddenly behave like quicksand causing buildings to sink or tilt and collapse. In such regions, buildings should be either supported on pile foundations resting on hard strata or should be constructed after suitable ground improvement measures are undertaken.
In hilly terrains (as in the Himalayan regions), landslides are likely to be triggered, bringing down buildings located on the unstable slopes. Slope stabilising measures can help to some extent to arrest the damage.
Even if the soil and foundations in a structure are safe, collapse of a building can occur if it does not have adequate strength to resist the horizontal forces that are generated during an earthquake. Also, there should be adequate ductility, which is the ability of the structure to deform without collapsing during the earthquake. For this, it is important to ensure that the connections at the various interfaces of building components remain intact during the shaking.
The seismic forces generated increase with the mass and the height of the building. Therefore, it is desirable to adopt light-weight materials and low-rise structures in highly earthquake-prone regions, unless they are properly designed, detailed and constructed, based on the prevailing standards.
Most of the construction in India are ‘non-engineered’ and built in masonry. Often, the connections between the roof and the walls, and between cross-walls, are weak, rendering such buildings vulnerable to collapse.
There are recommendations available in our national codes on providing seismic-resistant features in such buildings — such as providing small reinforced concrete bands in the walls at the plinth, lintel (above the windows and doors) and roof levels, and various other measures to ‘tie’ the components of the building together. These measures ensure that integrity is preserved during ground shaking. The concrete bands should be horizontally continuous throughout the walls to help in tying the components of the building together. It is also important to ensure that the materials used (such as brick and mortar) as well as construction practices, should be of good quality.
Retrofitting old buildings that do not have such concrete bands is also possible. Ferrocement bands and embedded metal strips that run across the walls (horizontally and vertically) can preserve the integrity of the buildings to a large extent.
In the case of modern buildings, which are ‘framed’ (comprising a skeleton of columns and beams, typically made of reinforced concrete) or having shear walls, it is possible to ensure safety against collapse through proper structural design and detailing, to achieve the desired strength and ductility. There should be adequate number of frames in the two perpendicular directions in plan. The frames should be more-or-less symmetrically distributed to minimise twisting of the building.
Unlike buildings that have a basement, those built on stilts — with no walls in the ground storey — are more likely to collapse, as evidenced during the 2001 Gujarat earthquake. The structural instability is triggered by yielding in the ground storey columns, causing the upper storeys to come crashing down. In this case, the vertical walls of the building do not reach the ground; they suddenly end at the first floor of the building.
As a result, a sudden discontinuity in mass and stiffness of the walls arises leading to a concentration of stresses in the ground floor columns. The embedded steel in the column yields at the beam-column junction in the ground storey causing the whole building to collapse — technically called a pancake collapse.
Buildings on stilts need to be specially designed. Columns in the stilts should be stronger and stiffer than those in the rest of the building to take the additional stress introduced by the stilt construction.
Thus, we can safeguard the lives of our people by adopting proper building design and construction practices.

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:: Sports ::

Railways is the champion

Railways won the fifth senior National hockey championship when it defeated Uttar Pradesh 5-3 in a well-contested final. For third place, Air India outplayed Gangpur 5-3.
Railways took the lead nine minutes into the game through a penalty stroke converted neatly by Amit Rohidas. Talwinder Singh increased the lead eight minutes later before Rohidas scored a field goal in the 21st minute.
Uttar Pradesh, earning a penalty corner, found a goal through a Sunil Yadav but Railways added two more goals when Affan Yusuf and Rohidas found the target.
Uttar Pradesh knocked in two goals in succession through Yadav and Amir Khan but Railways sat on the lead to emerge a comfortable winner.

Vijay Shankar sportsman of the year, lifetime achievement award for Baskaran

V. Baskaran, India’s Olympic hockey gold medal winning captain (Moscow 1980), was honoured with the lifetime achievement award at the GVSPL-TNSJA (Tamil Nadu Sports Journalists’ Association) awards function.
“I thank TNSJA for the honour. It is one of the best awards in the country in recognising excellence. I have been here before. But this year, I am on a different platform. I congratulate all the other award winners.” said Baskaran in his acceptance speech.
While Tamil Nadu cricketer Vijay Shankar was named the sportsman of the year, the sailing duo of Varsha Gautham and Aishwarya Nedunchezhiyan was bestowed with the sportswomen of the year honour.
The lifetime achievement award for a journalist went posthumously to Rayan Amal Raj, former sports in-charge, Indian Express. S. Dakshinamoorthy, who guided the Tamil Nadu volleyball team to the National Games gold recently was named coach of the year. The Tamil Nadu cricket team which finished runner-up in the Ranji Trophy was chosen as the team of the year.
Karthikeyan Murali and G.K. Monnisha (both chess) were named young achievers. The newly-instituted jury awards went to Vr. Aravindh Chithambaram (chess), Abhinav Mukund (cricket), Suket Srenivas (yoga), A. Amalraj and A. Sharath Kamal (table tennis) and S. Prabagaran (volleyball).
Former India cricketer Venkatesh Prasad, India’s first Formula One driver Narain Karthikeyan and Tamil Nadu sports minister S. Sundararaj graced the occasion.
T.N. Raghu, president, TNSJA, delivered the welcome address and K. Keerthivasan, secretary, proposed the vote of thanks. Television host Sumanth C. Raman anchored the function.
List of other GVSPL-TNSJA awards: Scholarships winners (Rs. 30,000 each): S. Nandhini (athletics), G. Chandramouleeshwar (badminton), C. Lakshmi (chess), S.B. Keerthana (cricket), G.V. Hariharan (football), B. Mithlesh (shooting), P.M. Abishiktha (swimming), N. Vidya (table tennis), S. Prasanth and R. Angamuthu (volleyball).